3 weeks exactly from dig to swim. We are in Houston, had zero rain days. There was someone here working all but 2 or 3 days of the build.

We are at Day 22 and tomorrow which will be Day 23 we should have water in the pool if we pass inspection. I do not expect any problems. Look at out thread "Our New Pool Build in Jacksonville, FL" We could have been done 7 days ago but the pool cage person was backed up due to rain.

LOL. It took 8 months for ours start to "finish"

There are still a few punch items, but for the most part everything is done.

Keep in mind that our pool build did include some additonal things, like our outdoor kitchen, rebuilding parts of our wooden deck, etc.

Not that I would know personally, but I believe it to be like child birth. You are made to forget the pain. Especially now, as we're enjoying the heck out of our pool in the 106 degree Austin heat.

Our build, and the problems we ran into, is well documented here: http://theaustindude.blogspot.com/

Here is a link that might be useful: Our 8 month pool build.

I am not sure I qualify for the poll just yet since my pool is not completed. If we stay on schedule, we will be swimming 26 days after excavation. My deck is being done right this second and PT is Monday, wash and fill on Tuesday.

We have had several small rain delays and one big one where we lost an entire week.

We're in the Houston area and ours took about 6 weeks, including a fiberglass pool and existing deck area demolition. We did have a number of rain days last year, maybe a week or more. Wish the rain would come back!

I am in Houston Tx where we are receiving little or no rain this summer; day one on my pool was 7-7-09 water went in on day day 12 the only thing after that was waiting a couple of days for chemicals to set in and the fun started. Here is my PB's website if anyone in the Houston is interested in a good builder www.BestBackyardPools.com (besides it being a 2 week build it was also reasonably priced)

Viennamommy: How is the process going so far and are you satisfied with Huston Pools? I currently live in Fairfax and I'm in need of a PB. Please advise.

Started July 8th, swimming on August 7th. We were originally told to expect 6-8 weeks, not sure how it came in just over 4 but I'll take it. :)

Bam- just replied to you in another thread. How much land do you have? If you're less than two acres, your pool builder will have to use an engineer to submit grading plans. This is a major expense and pain. These new regulations are costing pool builders in the area so much business it's terrible.

Sandy Huston has been wonderful in negotiating with the county but we haven't built yet so I can't give my full approval. We're scheduled to dig on Wednesday if we get our permit on Monday (which we should, FINALLY!!!).

Sandy also has a retail store on Rt. 50 in Fairfax (right near the old Expo if you know where that is).

viennamommy- thanks for responding. We are on 7 acres in ffx station but its mostly wooded. The cleared portion in the backyard is about 1/2 acre. We have been warned by a PB we interviewed.

Our neighbors all have pools but no one was completely satisfied by the process. I am scheduled to interview town and country. The PB we interviewed first says lewis-aquatech is no longer in business (I have not verified it though). I will contact Huston at your request.

Also, did you have drawings prepared before you interviewed PB's?

thanks again and good luck

With 7 acres, you're golden! You certainly won't need a grading plan or drainage system. I think the 6 1/2 wooded acres will only help you with compliance with the Chesapeake Bay Watershed act. We literally had to fight with the county and discuss every tree on our property (we back to 50acres of FFX County parkland but they refused to consider this when looking at out plat).

I find it hard to believe that Lewis Aquatech isn't in business. The salesman who gave us a proposal was working on several multi-million dollar projects (or so he said!). He said that he could do a pool in our budget and presented us with a proposal $40k over what we wanted to spend filled with lovely extras that we just couldn't afford and, frankly, didn't ask for.

Definitely contact Sandy Huston @ Huston Pools Inc and Pools by Young. I know that T&C does great work but we weren't impressed by their proposal because they didn't seem to put a lot of time and effort into it. No drawings, just rough ideas itemized with an approximate budget.

We didn't have drawings prepared ahead of time but we did have an idea of what we wanted. We looked to the builders for ideas that they thought would fit our lifestyle. What are you looking to build? We're doing a 15x30 rectangle w/ auto cover. 3ft-5ft, waterfall and large tanning ledge. We've got a toddler, two dogs and potentially more kiddos on the way!

Good luck to you as well!

Too long. Contract specified 6-8 weeks. Excavation to swimming was 4 months; excavation to approximately 90% project completion was 6 months.

This was a highly recommended PB with good references and BBB history...he just had some serious family issues that came up and his business got out of control on him.

Others on this forum have had it much, much worse.

initial permit application = 3 weeks
2nd round of permits after 1st permit was rejected=+2 more weeks
build = 5 weeks (lost 1 day to rain, and 2 days to a moron inspector)

so the government paperwork and admin took longer than the construction.

Leesburg, VA. NVBlue Pools, about 8 weeks and was on schedule.

We are in Kansas City, MO.

We signed a contract for our pool on October 13, 2008, and the pool was just plastered on August 8, 2009. That's 10 months (not including the time we were waiting for final price quote and references before signing the original contract, and not including all the cleanup work, fencing, and landscape repairs that still need to be done).

Our story is similar to what 'Birdbath' went through in her pool build on this forum in earlier posts. The pool builder was one of the top 3 builders in our area who had been in business since 1958 and had a reputation for building qualilty high-end pools. The company ceased operations in April 2009 (bank seized all assets of the company to pay down the line of credit) and stopped working on all pools in process, without any notification to the homeowners of what had happened.

Our pool was about 80% complete (and 90% paid), so we were faced with finding a new pool builder willing and able to come in and finish up the job. Of course, the pool will end up costing about 20% more than we originally agreed to pay, but after looking at our gunite shell and torn-up mess of a yard for the last 7 months, we are just grateful to finally have water in the pool and be able to swim.

Here is a link that might be useful: photobucket slideshow

I think I have you all beat!! On our pool, the dig was started March 22, 2006. steel done the following day and Gunite was on April 1,2006. thats when we noticed pool was not built to plan and off the location on plan by 6 feet. beach enrty only had 5" of water at end of ramp and then 3 large steps to reach bottom of pool that certainly were not on original plan. Yuck!! well after being harrassed by the pool builder's lawyers and fighting with the CSLB, we finally were able to get someone else to complete the build. work resumed 13 months, yes thirteen months later and pool was completed in August of 2007. what a headache. and to top it off, Our original Pool builder proceded to place a Lien on my house and initiated a lawsuit against me to recoup his supposed " lost profit " even though he didn't build pool to plan. To make a long story short, The arrogant Pool builder lost the lawsuit he brought upon me and was ordered to pay me a confidential judgement to walk away and be quiet about what had happened. I won the lawsuit but after the stress the builder put upon me, I feel I didn't win either. I was able to complete my pool with the judgement I was awarded but my family had to deal with not being able to use our backyard for over a year. The plumbing trenches were left open and we had to pay a crew just to fill holes/trenches to make yard safe enough for my dogs to use to relieve themselves. What a nightmare! its no wonder the Pool building industry has such a shady reputation. I apologize to all of you legitimate and honest builders with integrity, but my Pool builder was an arrogant A__hole who thought he was doing me a favor by simply building my pool.
Start date 3/22/06 and completion 8/04/07 UGHH!!

Bump!!

Wow- so interesting to see how this varies!